This is essentially called as The Taj Mahal series and ‘Twentieth Wife’ is the first of the trilogy. A love tale weaved in the political historical plot, marinated with facts and dwelled in a little fancy. It is the story of Mehrunnissa & Jahangir, the story of want and desire!

No. of Characters

Many

Tone of writing

Round, Intelligent and explanatory.

My take on the book

Review

>The book is intelligently written, well researched and has deep insights for history lovers and for non history lovers too.

>I had heard a lot of this series and about Sundaresan’s writing. After reading through this book I realized that the book is good, but hyped. On the author’s writing, I would certainly agree that it is great, enchanting and captivating.

>Sundaresan has a great command over language, the ease is felt with which she must have written it all. She is well versed and exhibits her intelligence through her writing.

>On the other hand I felt that the novel could have cut down by say 100 pages to make it crisp and precise. When one reads history, which is a not fiction, one wants constant actions taking place in the plot. If in the flow there is a little extra added widen the narration, it takes away the interest of the reader, me thinks.

>One reason I can think of writing a lengthy book is that when a writer sits for writing, the mood and the atmosphere determines the length and flow of writing. It is difficult to break down that flow of thoughts suddenly to move to the next chapter or even a paragraph.

>I’m no writer but I’m guessing this could be the case. That said, I’m not denying the novel the rating that it scores. It is a lovely novel, which tells you about bravery, love, lust and determination midst politics and empire-ship.

>This series has 2 other novels, Feast of Roses & The Shadow Princess. I’m not sure if I’ll pick them next but I will read them for sure, to finish the trilogy, to know what’s up next in the series 🙂